Holocaust
Survivors
and
Remembrance
Projectpreserving the past to
protect the future ...

In
1975, Mr. Horst Biesold, a teacher of deaf students in Bremen,
West Germany, was curious.Mr. Biesold loved sports-especially deaf
sports. Mr. Biesold was hearing, but he knew many deaf people. He
had many friends who were deaf because he loved deaf sports.

Mr. Biesold wondered why none of his deaf friends had children.
Finally, he asked one of his friends about it.

The man was very embarrassed. But he told
Mr. Biesold the truth: The German government had sterilized him.
Under the Nazis in the 1930's, the government had removed his
testes. The testes are the male reproductive glands. Without his
testes, Mr. Biesold's friend could never father
children.

Stunned, Mr. Biesold began to do
research. He wanted to find out how many deaf adults in Germany
could not have children.

Mr. Biesold's research showed
that:

17,000 deaf people were
sterilized in Germany in the 1930's; Catholic priests and
Jewish rabbis tended to protest sterilization; Protestant
ministers tended to support it; Deaf people had a Nazi
organization; their Nazi organization supported sterilization;
When people were sterilized, no medicine was used for pain; the
reproductive glands-testes in men and ovaries in women-were
removed without anesthetic; 33% of the people who were
sterilized were under 18 years old; 9% of the people who were
sterilized were women, pregnant more than six months, as part
of forced abortions;

By 1940, sterilization was replaced by
murder; the Nazis called it "mercy killing;" About 150,000
handicapped people- and 1600 deaf peoplewere killed by the
Nazis.

"Mr. Biesold's work was so important,"
said Marla Petal, who invited Mr. Biesold to speak at the Temple
Beth Solomon of the deaf in 1983.

"The Nazis hurt deaf people beyond
belief. They murdered and maimed them and they wiped out a
generation of their children.